Moral disengagement and children’s propensity to tell coached lies

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between children’s proneness to endorse moral disengagement mechanisms and their anticipated antisocial lie telling. Participants were 107 predominantly white Australian children in Grade 1 (27 boys, 27 girls; M_age = 6.69 years) and Grade 4 (24 boys, 29 girls; M_age = 9.69 years). Children completed a lie-telling moral disengagement scale and two vignettes. In the first vignette, a child character witnessed a transgression and was coached to say that they did not see the transgression occur (lie type: false denial). In the second vignette, a child character did not witness a transgression and was coached to say that they saw a transgression (lie type: false allegation). In accordance with social cognitive theory predictions, greater proneness to using moral disengagement mechanisms was associated with children’s anticipated lie telling for both false allegations and false denials. These findings highlight the important role of moral disengagement in children’s lie telling.

Keywords:

• Moral disengagement
• lying
• child development
• social cognitive theory
• lie-telling

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the research assistants for their help in collecting these data, including Michael Fajardo, Andrijana Cica, Lucy Ellen, Jacqueline Triegaardt, Lisa Wyburd, Phoebe Robeau, Maggie Smith, Jorsic van Heerden and Poss Logan. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the children who participated in this research.